Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog » Hunting Talk

Plaintiffs Appeal Firearms Freedom Act Ruling to the Ninth Circus Court

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:53:56 +0000

Enroute to the U.S. Supreme Court

MISSOULA, MONT. – Plaintiffs in litigation to validate the principles of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA) have appealed an expected but adverse federal district court decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The plaintiffs in MSSA v. Holder include the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and MSSA President Gary Marbut of Missoula.

The MFFA is designed to test the power of Congress to regulate everything without limits under the narrow power given to Congress in the Constitution to “regulate commerce … among the states.” The MFFA declares that any firearms, ammunition and firearm accessories made and retained in Montana are not subject to any federal authority under the Commerce Clause. Congress must find some authority among the Constitution’s “enumerated powers” for every action it takes.

Plaintiffs filed the lawsuit MSSA v. Holder on the day the MFFA became effective in Montana, October 1, 2009. Since the MFFA enactment in Montana, the MFFA has been cloned and enacted in seven other states, and FFA bills have been introduced in the legislatures of 20 more states.

In a judgment entered on October 19, 2010, the district court granted the U.S. Motion to Dismiss. It is this judgment that is now appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

MSSA President and plaintiff Gary Marbut commented, “We’ve known all along that the district court will not provide what we seek, the reversal of a half-century of bad Commerce Clause precedent. We need to get to the U.S. Supreme Court for that. This notice of appeal puts us at the 50-yard line in our quest to get to the Supreme Court – it is a big step in the direction we need to go.”

Not only has the FFA concept attracted the interest and support of many other states frustrated with an overbearing federal government, but the MSSA v. Holder lawsuit has attracted an unusual, perhaps record, number of amici (amicus curiae, friends of the court). Some qualified observers say they’ve never seen a case that has attracted as much amici support at the district court level as this case has. Amici include the State of Utah (also representing several other states), Gun Owners Foundation (Gun Owners of America), the Goldwater Institute of Arizona, the Paragon Foundation of New Mexico, the Weapons Collectors Society of Montana, an amicus group of Montana legislators who supported the MFFA, and another amicus group of non-Montana legislators who sponsored or co-sponsored FFA bills in other states. The State of Montana has also intervened in support of the MFFA. Other amici are expected to enter in support of the MFFA when the lawsuit is argued before Ninth Circuit.

“It is totally obvious from the positions of federal participants, both lawyers and judges for the U.S.,” Marbut commented, “that the federal establishment definitely, almost desperately, wishes to prevent this issue from having a trial on merit.”

The likely options for the Ninth Circuit are to uphold the judgment of the district court or to overrule the district court and remand the case back to the district court for trial. Regardless of what action is taken by the Ninth Circuit, MSSA v. Holder is certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court only reviews the district court dismissal on appeal to it, the Supreme Court can still rule on the merits of the case since part of the grounds for dismissal is based on merit.

Still time to save on Guns in South Carolina during their annual “Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday”

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 02:40:38 +0000

South Carolina’s controversial and annual “Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday” is back as of today, November 26, at 12:01 a.m. and will run through midnight Saturday, November 27.

If you haven’t guessed if you buy a handgun, rifle, or shotgun you’ll be able to skip the state’s 6% sales tax and any local county tax. But all gun accessories and ammunition won’t be subject to the discount.

If you need to know any of the nitty gritty check out this FAQ from the South Carolina Department of Revenue.

Don’t forget National Ammo Day this Year. It is Friday November 19th

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:18:50 +0000

Friday, November 19, is National Ammo Day, a day when gun-owners are encouraged to purchase at least 100 rounds of ammunition. National Ammo Day is an annual BUYcott event, a grassroots demonstration of the numbers of committed American firearms owners. There are an estimated 75 MILLION gun owners in the United States of America. If each gun owner or Second Amendment supporter buys 100 rounds of ammunition, that’s 7.5 BILLION rounds in the hands of law-abiding citizens!

Ammo Day is based on the principle that there is strength in numbers. Consider this – when politicians see the amount of tax dollars generated through ammunition sales those politicians will be less inclined to pass restrictive legislation. Likewise, when millions of lawful firearms owners “vote with their pocketbooks” on Ammo Day, it demonstrates that supporters of the Second Amendment are serious, organized, and willing to spend money to protect their rights. That’s something anti-gun politicians can’t ignore

A conservative look at gun control and the history of it

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:38:53 +0000

Conservative commentator Bill Whittle wants you to know what We the Teapole believe about gun control.

True Facts about firearms in America you NEED to Know!

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 08:37:49 +0000

We would like to thank GunFacts.info for this file. We are only giving you one type of the file. They have 4 types in both English and spanish. If you do not like or just want a different way of seeing the same file please head over to the Gun Facts site. We added this to our server to help you and pull a bit of the load from their server. This file (Downloaded-able Here). It contains REAL statistics, (Not the ones you here on the news) The fact that the American Association of Police Chiefs believe we the “public” should be able to own and carry guns for both our safety and hunting purposes. The type of Facts that the Drive By media and gun grabbers don’t want you to know. Alomg with other truths and real life facts. Please download a copy read, keep, and pass a link to it along to all your friends.

We heard bout this site from the Gun Rights Radio Network and the pod casts their for pointing this site out to us. They post pod casts about guns, gun rights, gun news, and reviews. Just wanted to be fair to both sites.

Mouth Activated Rifle Trigger? It’s real!

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:25:59 +0000

Bad Driver? In Debt? Proposed New NYC Law Would Ban You From Owning a Firearm

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:10:36 +0000

New York City residents who want to own a gun may soon be denied permits if they are litterbugs, if they are bad drivers, or if they have fallen behind on a few bills.
Under proposed revisions to the police department’s handgun, rifle and shotgun permit procedures, the NYPD can reject gun license applicants for a number of reasons, including:
If they have been arrested or convicted of almost any “violation,” in any state; having a “poor driving history”; having been fired for “circumstances that demonstrate lack of good judgment”; having “failed to pay legally required debts”; being deemed to lack “good moral character”; or if any other information demonstrates “other good cause for the denial of the permit.”
Critics say many of the restrictions are vague, have nothing to do with one’s fitness to own a gun and are unconstitutional.
Supporters say the new restrictions will make gun purchasing more efficient and don’t give the NYPD any more power than it already has.
According to a Report of the Governmental Affairs Division, the changes came about as the result of two recent Supreme Court decisions.
“In District of Columbia v. Heller the Court found that a District of Columbia law banning the possession of handguns in the home was invalid due to the rights conferred by the Second Amendment; in McDonald v. City of Chicago, Ill., the Court applied that right equally to the States,” the report says.
As result, Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, introduced a proposal to lower the city’s fees for gun permits to ones that more accurately reflect what the city spends to issue them.
“Now the fees are going to be much less and they’re going to have a relationship to the amount of administrative costs that are involved, and in that way it will withstand the Constitution and the court challenge that most people expect will be coming down the road,” Vallone told FoxNews.com.
The current $340 fee for all pistol licenses would be lowered to $70 for a premises license and $110 for a carry license. Rifle and shotgun permits would drop from $140 to $65. Costs for license renewals would also be significantly reduced.
With the lower fees, the New York Police Department also introduced revisions to the police department’s gun permit procedures, which, unlike Vallone’s bill, need only approval from the mayor’s office, not the City Council.
“Although I do have oversight capability and I can have a hearing on it, I don’t have any formal say in it,” Vallone said.
Councilmember Dan Halloran says those revisions are intended to give the police more power to deny licenses, which could counter a possible spike in gun ownership triggered by the lower fees.
But Halloran and Vallone say the proposed restrictions give the NYPD so much authority that they violate the Second Amendment.
“The disqualification categories are downright scary. They’re completely open to interpretation and they really don’t measure anybody’s fitness to own a gun,” Halloran told FoxNews.com.
He pointed to a restriction stating applicants can be denied if they’ve “been arrested, indicted or convicted for a crime or violation, except minor traffic violations.”
“So now the city can deny a permit for a building code violation, a sanitation ticket for failing to sweep the sidewalk … an array of non-criminal acts,” Halloran said.
Another troublesome restriction, Halloran said, is one that allows permit denial if “the applicant has failed to pay legally required debts such as child support, taxes, fines or penalties imposed by governmental authorities.”
“So people who are in foreclosure, or have credit card judgments, maybe filed bankruptcy, can now be legally denied,” he said.
Applicants can also be denied, under the new restrictions, if they’ve “been terminated from employment under circumstances that demonstrate lack of good judgment or lack of good moral character.”
“It seems to me it’s more of an application to be pope than to be a gun owner,” Vallone said. “I don’t know anyone who would pass this thing. Anyone who has ever tried marijuana or has a bad driving history, lost a job regarding a lack of judgment – those are ridiculous criteria for gun ownership.”
But Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office, said nothing in the proposal gives police a power they don’t already have.
“The revisions will make the application process more efficient and give more clarity to applicants for gun licenses,” Post told FoxNews.com in an e-mail.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, agreed, saying the changes appear to be a “fleshing out” of existing gun restrictions, and not an expansion of them.
“I think it’s a good faith attempt by New York City authorities to make sure that their restrictions comply with the Constitution standards that the Supreme Court’s adopted over the last two years,” he told FoxNews.com.
While some restrictions, like paying legally required debts, may seem irrelevant to critics, Helmke says they are not.
“Child support, taxes, fines and governmental penalties I think are legitimate things. Basically, if someone’s not complying with what the government requires of somebody, that’s usually a sign that you can’t trust them to follow the rules with something like a gun,” he said.
As for whether the rule could apply to failure to pay a cable TV bill, as Halloran implied, Helmke said, “I think he’s stretching it there.”
Halloran said the biggest problem is that the rules are open to that kind of interpretation, and he pointed to the clause that reads that applicants can be denied for failure “to provide information requested by the License Division or required by this chapter” or “other information demonstrates an unwillingness to abide by the law, a lack of candor towards lawful authorities, a lack of concern for the safety of oneself and/or other persons and/or for public safety, and/or other good cause for the denial of the license,” as the most obvious example.
“Could this be any more vague and open ended?” he asked. “Ask yourself, would any other constitutional right be subject to such vagaries? Imagine these requirements put to be eligible to vote, to have a lawyer, to be secure in your person or possessions, your right to a jury.”
Former federal prosecutor and constitutional law expert Douglas Burns said that while the Heller and McDonald cases allow guns to be regulated closely, New York’s proposal has some legal issues.
“If left unchanged, I think there could be some problems in court with it,” Burns told FoxNews.com in an e-mail.
With a few adjustments, though, the proposal could be made to stand up in court, he said.
“I think like any proposed amendments, it has to be fine-tuned — you can’t leave in “violations other than traffic” because under NYS law a violation is not a criminal offense, so I think that’s a problem. Also, as I said, the debt payment and job-firing language has to be fine-tuned; it is too broad…. I think the legislator does raise some valid concerns.”
The council is due to vote on the price changes, which are expected to pass, and to advise the police department on the restriction changes Wednesday.
Should the department decide to go forward with the proposed changes, Vallone says he is “seriously considering having an oversight hearing on this topic”

Police Launch Stealth Gun Control Group: The National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:39:02 +0000

“The National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence was launched today at the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Orlando, Florida,” prnewswire.com informs us. “Representatives of the founding organizations were on hand to speak to the devastating impact of firearms, which kill and injure 100,000 Americans each year.” Yada yada yada gun crimes suck. Not one word in the release on what this new group will actually do. “Reducing gun violence is absolutely essential. Far too many of our citizens live in fear and far too many of our officers have lost their lives,” said Chief Rob Davis, president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. “This unprecedented partnership is about bringing a fresh, pragmatic perspective to the debate about how to enhance community and officer safety.” Like that. So . . . what’s the real deal?

Like I was sayin’, the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence ain’t saying. The only clue comes in their Statement of Principles. [Click here to download.] And that’s just as vague as the press release. Point three gives us an inkling:

Elected officials must commit to closing gaps in the current regulatory system, including those that enable felons, minors, persons with mental illness, and other prohibited persons to access firearms, and those that allow the trafficking of illegal guns.

What about the gaps between words? (Justification’s like that.) I wasn’t aware of any gaps in the current regulatory system that enable felons, minors, persons with mental illness, and other prohibited persons to gain access to firearms, or the trafficking of illegal guns. As far as I know, it’s already illegal to provide any of these groups with firearms. Perhaps we should focus on enforcement of existing laws.

That said, the statement’s meaning depends on how you define “access.” If you limit the meaning to “purchase or possession,” it’s all bad. But a wider interpretation of this seemingly innocuous “principle” could also green light attempts to legislate against the so-called “gun show loophole” and the equally phantasmagorical “terrorist loophole.” What’s the bet that that’s exactly what this new meta-group’s gunning for?

Needless to say, there’s no website for The National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, or a contact number at the bottom of the press release.

The biggest indication that I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat: the new org’s Statement of Principles is hosted on the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) website, along with their contact person (left message). The IACP was solidly behind H.R. 2159, the now stillborn Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act. The bottom line: the IACP never met a gun reg “loophole” they didn’t want to close, regardless of its effect on Americans’ gun rights.

While we attempt to chase this down, I would once again caution those who seeks to defend and extend the Second Amendment: the law enforcement community is not your friend.

Why In The Name Of All That Is Good And Holy Do People Still Think Car Doors Provide Cover And Can Stop All Bullets?

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:07:59 +0000

The only part of a car that you could kinda maybe count on to stop a bullet is the engine block. And yet IDPA and the rest of the run n’ gun crowd are constantly holding competitions where you have to shoot from behind a car door. Yes, I know the difference between cover (ballistic protection) and concealment (hiding). But I reckon the combat sim crowd should run drills and comps where the shooters have to fire from behind more realistic fake cover (if you know what I mean). I’d also like to point out that most times these shooters expose their entire upper body while firing, rather than “peeking out” from cover. Or concealment. Anyway, talk to me about cover. Do you scan for it when you walk around? What do you look for?

2 shot riffle sight in video

Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:45:59 +0000

Below is a video showing you ho to sight in your riffle with 2 sots. Enjoy.